Review AVault gives Divine Divinity a review

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Divine Divinity

<a href="http://avault.com">Adrenaline Vault</a> has posted a rather lackluster <a href="http://www.avault.com/reviews/review_temp.asp?game=divi">review</a> of <a href="http://www.larian.com/Site/english/divinity/divinity.html">Divine Divinity</a>, giving it a <b>3.5/5 stars</b>. They cite poor AI, poor game balance, and a few other things as the blotches on the game. Here's a bit of it:
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<blockquote>The fact that so many skills are unbalanced or are easily made redundant by equipment that duplicates their effects helps to unhinge the combat system, which should be the strong point of titles within the click-fest RPG genre. Indeed, many of the monsters are wildly unbalanced, with one greater enemy having the combined strength of ten lesser ones surrounding it. This typically leads to the player dashing about the countryside, slaughtering underlings and saving their masters for later, when it's a fair fight. As soon as it's an equal match, however, an even stronger enemy will be unveiled. A single giant orc once followed me into the human barracks and proceeded to slaughter over 30 pikemen; how the humans manage to even exist in Rivellon is beyond my comprehension.</blockquote>
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The particularly painful part of the review comes at the very end of it, when they suggest fans of Diablo 2 should probably pick up Dungeon Siege or Throne of Darkness instead. Ouch.
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Anyway, this was spotted at <a href="http://www.ve3d.com">VoodooExtreme</a>.
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[Sheriff_Fatman]

I'm about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through Div Div right now.

The skills do seem unbalanced, in that some of them seem pretty worthless while others are useful (I haven't seen any over-powered skills). This hasn't detracted from the game for me.

Combat is common but not time consuming, so it doesn't get in the way. The story is well done, with a broad selection of interesting characters and places. The items are randomly generated, but haven't been much of a focus for me. Players of Diablo2 may or may not like it, but it is really not similar in game play, because combat is not an onslaught and there is a large amount of adventure-style gameplay that doesn't involve fighting.

I don't know what path (skills and story progression) the AVault reviewer took, but I've certainly not found the "single hard monster" problem he mentions. When fighting, there tend to be a big gang of medium/easy creatures supported by a few hard/medium creatures. The biggest risk is getting mobbed, but that's not much of a problem if you run off a short way every now and then.

The quests are a mix of simple and complex, the overall effect being pretty stimulating in terms of keeping you wanting to play. You can follow up some simple quests or progress the main ones, depending on your mood.

Items are randomly generated, but they haven't been a focus for me. They're more curios than anything else. My brother, who is at almost the same point in the game as I am, has much better equipment, but it doesn't have a huge impact on the difficulty. I like the way you can stockpile items (collecting those little curios) without inventory management being intrusive.

This is a great game story, setting and personality-wise. It's probably not for people who like to spend their time weighing skills against each other or planning their character skills development. It's certainly not a game for people who want combat to be anything other than a side issue (tactics are rudimentary, if that).

My biggest criticism would be that some of the dungeons seem a bit too long and kind of superfluous.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I played Divine Divinity for a while before I got side tracked. It was a really decent game, but I felt there was just way too much combat in it - especially at the beginning. I thought the combat was a little hard in places, especially when the potion/health drops were so rare. I'd often have to make long treks back to the village at the beginning just to get more potions, which I didn't enjoy.

However, I thought the game was really good. I like the way food effected you. I liked making potions. Generally, I liked a lot of the game beyond the first village. However, that first village just irritated me.

 

[Dan]

Pick Throne of Darkness?

I got that game for a birthday...
I played it for 30 minutes and then uninstalled it as brutaly as I could to make sure I won't be able to reinstall it. Ever.